I was recently asked to give an interview explaining my POST WTC series, so I set up a temporary exhibition in the York College Art Gallery and gave a gallery talk to my students. A video summary will be produced by Cablevision and will air during the first half of September, 2011.
The “POST WTC” Series was originally painted in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001. Even living out on Long Island, NY the smell of the smouldering remains of the wreckage was perceivable. The title of this body of work comes from the first painting of the series, “POST WTC.” The foreground of the painting contains recurring symbols from my previous works: Cat, Obelisks and a Cactus, with planes about to crash into the obelisks. The background is strewn with fallen monoliths and many of the symbols in the painting are labeled by name, as if civilization might have been wiped out completely and the names had been forgotten, and all that remains were hieroglyphs from the past.
Another painting, “The Four Planes,” illustrates the official story of 9/11, with planes crashing in four locations, except that the World Trade Center buildings have been replaced by obelisks again. Another painting in the series contains imagery of planes attacking other monuments representing civilization while another one imagines the remains of a post-apocalyptic landscape.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of that fateful day and it is still inconceivable to me that those mythic towers could have been brought down in that way. To see more images from the series please visit the POST WTC Gallery: http://www.jeffreyallenprice.com/gallery/index.html#/paintings/post_wtc
Tags: 9/11, art, cactus, cat, obelisk, painting, planes, world trade center